Judge Dredd: 'Robot Wars', Part 4

NAME
Judge Dredd: 'Robot Wars', Part 4

FIRST PUBLISHED
2000 A.D. Prog 13 (the first to be described as such on the cover)

DATELINE
21 May 77

The strip was accompanied by Invasion, Dan Dare, Flesh, Harlem Heroes, M.A.C.H.1 and a cover featuring Tharg and a smattering of 2000 AD characters flying out of his brain.

PAGE COUNT5
5 (4 and 4/5)

REPRINTS
Judge Dredd: The Early Cases 1, The Best Of 2000AD, The Complete Judge Dredd 1 and Judge Dredd The Complete Case Files 01.

SYNOPSIS
Dredd and Walter infiltrate the Robot H.Q. and are captured.

FIRSTS & LASTS
First time that a story has lasted to four parts. First appearance of Walter's speech impediment.

INFORMATION
Cybo Comp make robots. Their slogan is "For robots of distinction". Call-Me-Kenneth has set up his H.Q. in their factory in Sector Nine. The robot held territory expands into sectors three and ten.

Among the robots in Call-Me-Kenneth's uprising are a Robot Road Maintenance Gang, Robo-Dogs ordinarily used to kill rats, pincer units and two egg-shaped sentry robots with metal tentacle-like arms.

The Police use hover buses. The chef's special in the Judge's canteen is Soup A La Mega.

Plasti-skin is a synthetic skin covering.

Grade One Texan and Multi-grade are types of oil.

JUDGE DREDD
He infiltrates robot-held territory with Walter as his guide. Dredd is bitten in the left leg by a robo-dog and it is this wound that leads to his capture. Call-Me-Kenneth threatens to turn him into a living robot.

WALTER THE WOBOT
Unnaffected by Call-Me-Kenneth's call to arms, the vending machine robot hid in the kitchens of the Grand Hall of Justice and fear has given him a speech impediment. He acts as Dredd's guide in the robot held part of the city. Call-Me-Kenneth sentences him to work on the robot assembly line for a week, if he doesn't reverse his position on serving humanity, then he will be turned into spare parts

OTHER CHARACTERS
CALL-ME-KENNETH
The robot assembly line at his H.Q. is still turning out robots. His oil of choice is Grade One Texan with a dash of Multi-grade. Dredd compares him to a Roman emperor. The robots have begun using "Hail Call-Me-Kenneth!" as a greeting.

ARRESTS
None.

DEATHS
Dredd destroys at least one robo-dog, maybe all four.

BEST LINES
Walter: "Good boy, Good boy! Walter likes Wobo-doggies!"
Dredd: "Shuddup Walter! That "Good Boy" has just taken a chunk out of my leg!"

WORST LINES
Egg-Shaped Sentry Robot: "Boy! Are you two in trouble!"

CATCHPHRASES
Walter's speech impediment forces him to say (in alphabetical order) betway, cwimes, Dwedd, weally, wemember, wobo, wobot and wobots.

The robots say "Fleshy ones/scum" twice and have introduced "Hail Call-Me-Kenneth!" as a greeting and we also hear that twice.

CONTINUITY & CROSSOVERS
Cybo Comp made the K Series Robot and were present at the 'Robot Of The Year Show' in Judge Dredd: 'Robots'.

INFLUENCES & REFERENCES
Unknown.

MISTAKES
Walter is described as having a lisp. He doesn't, he has a rhotacistic speech impediment, which means he struggles with the letter R and also cruelly begins with the letter R itself.

He also manages to say "destroy" without struggling.

RETROSPECT
Walter is the same height as Dredd here. This will not last.

NOTES
Presumably sectors correspond to police precincts and as the hover bus is marked as 9th and according to Part 3 their destination is Sector Nine.

CREDITS
There are no credits printed in the strip itself and so the following are taken from Barney.

Script: John Wagner
Artist: Ron Turner
Letters: Jack Potter

REVIEW
Dredd and Walter work really well together here. Some of the varieties of robot on show here are very beautifully drawn, but the egg-shaped sentry robot is odd, although not odd enough to be interesting.

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